"City employees continue to be on the frontline of this pandemic, and those working in the prisons are no exception," Mayor Kenney said. "... I thank the correction officers and employees for their dedication during this challenging time"
Mayor Kenney encouraged people to celebrate "safely and responsibly," by adhering to stay at home orders. People should not gather in groups (large or small) outside of their immediate household, he said.
"Wear a mask, save a mom," he added. :)
Numbers below:
As of Wednesday, May 6, there have been 16,697 cases of COVID-19 and 803 related deaths in Philadelphia since the start of the pandemic.
This is an increase of 287 new cases and 60 deaths since yesterday.
As in past days, these daily numbers may be skewed based on the efficiency of testing, Dr. Farley said.
Overall, Philly is still on the downslope, and now making process in decreasing the numbers of cases in congregate settings, Dr. Farley added.
However, COVID-19 continues to hit nursing home residents hard, Dr. Farley said.
Of the total 803 deaths, 424 (53%) of people who died were nursing home residents.
In the city’s jail, now 26 people who are incarcerated are testing positive for the virus. This is a decrease of three people who have recovered, since yesterday.
Today’s hospital numbers are slightly lower than yesterday.
There are now 936 COVID-19 inpatients in Philadelphia hospitals and 1,739 in hospitals in the SE Pa. region.
Testing note: All sites (which are listed on phila.gov/covid) are asking people to call ahead before coming to get tested.
Last, Dr. Farley touched on the uncertainty of when we can “reopen Philadelphia.” The answer, he said, is unclear.
"The virus has more surprises in store for us," Dr. Farley said. "So we're just gonna have to see how it goes."
"I understand that uncertainty is difficult for everybody," Dr. Farley said. "That is simply the situation we're in now. I can say, though, that right now we are clearly moving in the right direction. Our actions are very much slowing the spread of this virus [and] saving lives."
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(1/) Thread on focusing on fair reporting, as opposed to unbiased reporting, based on a helpful tip from NYT's Astead Herndon, @AsteadWesley, in his AMA at #IRE20.
His explanation helped me better understand this concept and hopefully it can help others, too.
(2/) I asked @AsteadWesley his thoughts on responding to criticisms of bias in political reporting, and how to avoid it in the first place.
He responded that, "if you are fair, accurate, clear, and contextualized... you will not be biased."
(3/) The emphasis on routing out bias largely "comes from a journalism community that's for too long seated the question of objectivity to only being one that's in a partisan framework, and that's, frankly, one that I don't think really suits us," he said.
Here’s today’s (Wednesday, Aug 19) COVID-19 numbers in Philadelphia. This is based off of a press release from the Mayor’s Office.
As of today, Wednesday, Aug. 19, there have been 32,569 cases of COVID-19 and 1,735 related deaths in Philly since the start of the pandemic.
This is an increase of 137 new cases and 18 new deaths since yesterday.
Today’s large increase in deaths "is due in part to matching Department of Public Health records with death certificate," according to the press release.